From Not For Us to Tananai: the metamorphosis of the Milan scene

We all know that is very trendy to talk about geography within the musical context. Who has a good memory knows how we spent 2017: it was all chatting about the same five or six names, and the Internet was full of titles such as: "The roman scene takes everything", "The new face of the Neapolitan scene" and so on. For this, we immediately put our hands forward and with great nonchalance, between the creation of a brand new playlist and the fight against media campanilism, today we open a not obvious focus.

Alberto Cotta Ramusino, born in 1995, producer and Milanese author doc, seems to us the right backlash for the Milan scene: not to say "Hey, we are the best and we live here", as to underline an imperceptible change of great artistic value which, perhaps, is escaping right from under your nose. The producer, who has previously worked behind the pseudonym of Not For Us, had distinguished himself some time ago thanks to his record, To Discover And Forget, which boasted a considerable success: smoky, dark, irresistible. The same elements that come back in a new production, the lastest just out of the oven, Volersi Male, (with an artwork by Moab on the cover), with a not just addition: now Alberto sings in Italian on his own beats. He has recently transformed into Tananai: what was needed to give a definitive turn to his work. A name of art, he says, which is also a tribute to a person very close to him: "It's what my paternal grandfather used to call me when I was little, it means little pest. He is the only person in my family who has never been able to listen to my songs, he left when I was seven. Let's say it's my way to make it a part of it."

With Volersi Male a new chapter of Alberto's life opens: the low, melodic voice flows over a refined production. What happens is the autopsy of a flashback, memories that are poured one after another into the text, brought to memory by a perfume, willy-nilly. Olfactory memory is the most powerful one, because you can't control it. So the smell of a house, of a person, brings you back to "sotto cassa di mezza Europa", to "fare a pugni con l’alcol e la droga". At a first listening, the production takes everything but scratching beneath the surface the impact is brutal: everything is thrown out at breakneck speed, through what looks like a very long vocal message never sent. The success, arrived almost by chance, of this one only song in italian by the producer, has touched sensitive strings within our fervid musical movement, so as to end up in a playlist created just a few days ago by Spotify and called Scuola Indie. Is this the beginning of another, new adventure for the Italian music scene? After the vintage Graffiti Pop by Carl Brave x Franco126, Liberato, Frah Quintale, Coez, Gente and Masamasa, what will the next champions reserve for us? Or rather, what they will they have to teach us, given that the description of the playlist reads: "How to be indie: the lesson from the new scene".

It will be that air in Milan, where artists of all kinds were born and reamed (from Guè Pequeno to Mina, through Achille Lauro, Boss Doms, Rkomi and Manuel Agnelli) or in the heart of Lambrate where lately there is great movement in terms of removals, the fact is that something in this city is moving at an incredibly fast pace. Even some (irreducible) of the Roman scene migrate to the north: at least, so did Tauro Boys and Ketama126, of which we had already spoken here. Easy, you say, between radio, Sky and record companies, everything is there. Well no, or better, not only: music is changing and it seems not to be just a saying. Beyond Music Week and PR, beyond the contracts and the agencies, the artistic influences of the Lombard city seem to be leaving an ever deeper groove in the productions of those who cross it.

The Milanese scene seems to want to train the reign of the upcoming year, imposing itself on the market through an algorithm very different from the typical recipe of the Roman scene that we know well. Many less featuring, much less marketing and a lot, a lot of substance. There are no crews: the Milanese artists stand out for a great individuality that seeks in its own intimacy a scathing key to reading. The lyrics are not pet songs or shorts to be pumped with the gang in the car. In addition, the classic blue vibes made of melancholy and resignation, typical of Italian indie (if we still want to call it that) slowly disappear to make room for something new: a winning stylistic maturity, hypnotic rhythms, rugs of bursting sounds. The productions of Yakamoto Kotsuga, Generic Animal and, obviously, Tananai.

I have always been discontinuous in everything: in sport, in studying, in friendships and relationships. The only thing that has never bored me is music. I have been producing since the age of 14 and since then I have never thought of anything else. Music is my plan A and also my plan B, C, D ... as the alphabet goes on, you know it.